


Empty Bottles, Broken Time

by rocksalts



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean Winchester Prays to Castiel, Depressed Dean Winchester, Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Praying Sam Winchester, because im a slut for that i guess!!, not to cas but like, there mIGHT be a chapter two to this...eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28519065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocksalts/pseuds/rocksalts
Summary: Dean's been in a slump, the way he's always in a slump when he loses the other half of him. This time, he intends to make himself whole again.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44





	Empty Bottles, Broken Time

There was a lot to fix.

For a week after they’d left Chuck in the dirt, Dean couldn’t be bothered to actually make himself _start_.

Sam was around. He was more energetic than Dean was, at any rate, going from room to room collecting books, magical objects, food, whatever—whenever Dean looked, there was always something in his hands. And maybe it was because Sam had his hands full that Dean thought it was okay for his to be empty.

A lot felt empty these days.

His beer bottles, for one. They were always drained before Dean could realize where the alcohol had gone, before he could snap back and see that he’d been sitting in the same spot for hours, staring at nothing and thinking of less.

They’d gone on a few hunts, since Chuck. It was funny how freedom meant repetition, how the days melted together like a run on sentence. Dean didn’t know where one hunt ended and the other began—vampires became ghosts and witches and back again. He didn’t _care_. He _couldn’t_ care.

Dean just wanted his family back.

He actually gets the idea from Sam.

Dean’s back in the kitchen one night, eyes half closed as he tries squinting through a migraine to retrieve another beer from the refrigerator, when he stops before he can walk through the doorway.

“I know you’re, uh, busy, buddy. I’m–I can’t even imagine,” Sam huffs out a breath of laughter.

Dean frowns down at the watch on his wrist, tilting it to get a better look at the time. He’d been sure it was past Sam’s usual bedtime, which was why he’d snuck out of his room in the first place. Dean thinks he can make out ‘2:30 am’ from the thin little hands, one of which ticks away much slower than the rate he thinks seconds actually pass.

He thinks maybe that it’s broken, which wouldn’t be surprising considering the amount of times it’s smashed into things on hunts. He sighs at the irony.

Time. Broken.

“I just…want you to know that you—you’ve always got a room here, Jack. And we…um. We miss you.”

Dean understands, then. Sam’s _praying_. His breath hitches and he backs away, beer forgotten, to hightail it back to his room.

By the time Dean presses his back to the inside of his door, his brain feels close to rupturing from how fast he had retreated out of there. Prayers were _private_ , and hearing Sam talk to their kid like that was like a taking a blow to the head.

Even his sight had muddled black from the number it had done on his brain, but Dean’s vision does eventually clear, and the room comes into view. And then, for the first time in weeks, Dean sees it—he sees the disgusting mess of it, of all the bottles piled up, the clothes lying everywhere, the discarded trash thrown wherever he could find a place for it at the time.

He sucks in a breath, steeling himself for it, and pushes himself off of the door and towards the first pile.

After about an hour straight with no distractions, Dean’s room is half better. It was easier with tunes on, easier to find motivation in the lyrics of _Thunderstruck_ , and for that hour Dean felt more like himself than he had since…well, since he was last himself. He couldn’t exactly remember when that was, but he figures it was a long time ago. Back when…

Dean takes a seat on his bed—which he had somehow managed to clear completely—and lets his fingers intertwine together on his lap.

The music had stopped playing a while ago. It was quiet now.

“I hope you can hear me,” Dean starts. He’s said those words before. He thinks this time won’t be like the last, that he’s not lucky enough for this to end with an embrace, with a sigh of relief.

“But if—if you _can_ , ah, I want you to know something.”

He closes his eyes.

“I want you to know that the thing—what you thought you couldn’t have…you were wrong about that. Because Cas, you—” he stops, shakes his head a little to keep his voice steady for this. He needs to say it.

“You can have it. All you have to do is come back to me, like you always do, and you can have it. I…I promise I won’t screw this up this time. I’ll do better.

I’ll stop you from leaving whenever I say something wrong. I’ll—I’ll make sure you _know_ , man. I’ll make sure you know how much I—how much you mean to me. Because this…” He unlaces his fingers to gesture a hand at the room.

”I can’t do this without you. Never could, never will. Not since you touched me in hell, when you saw me broken and put me back together again. Cas, it’s—it’s always been you. I’m sorry I couldn’t say it before, I’m sorry it took this long. I hope you can forgive me, and," Dean grips his hand into a fist, "I hope my plan works.

‘Cause I’m getting you out of there, you son of a bitch. If it’s the last thing I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> i've gotten some requests to continue this fic, though it was intended as an open-ended one shot. if you think i should add another chapter or two, let me know either in the comments or via tumblr (rambleoncas)
> 
> as always, kudos/comments are appreciated if you enjoyed!! :,D ♡


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